please be careful

hello all I’m on DL again but hopefully only for a short while …. just wanted to let everyone know to please be extra careful in the shop around your power tools about 2:30 was working on dozer had a kick back on table saw and shot a piece of dark walnut into my belly 1/8” x 3/4” and went in about 3” think it hurt my pride more thanks for reading

Into your belly 3”? Did I read that right, it penetrated 3”? One day we’ll end up with surplus body armor to keep the injuries down! One of my sons and I were doing some wood cutting with a circular saw (he was driving), and he no more than started the thing when he got a bit of sawdust in his eye and had to go pick it out. He has safety glasses with top covers, but it was only one cut. You know how that goes. Went and cleared the chip and got his goggles on. I don’t really think about it, since I have worn glasses for over 50 years. I’ll be the nag from now on.

Glad to hear that you are OK Tony. We must all remember safety first when we are working with dangerous machinery. I think we all push the boundaries when making models but we must respect the machinery and try to eliminate the dangers.All the best with your recovery.

If you haven’t a zero clearance insert for your table saw, you should have one. Having said that you will need to make one. While you’re at that, consider a shop made splitter built into you ZCI. There are more articles about making one than the number of cupcakes the missus has before breakfast. So do a quick search.

Initially I fabricated a few different designs and combinations, but found that a fixed shop made splitter becomes a pain when you don’t do a through cut as it has to be removed (overcome by ZCI with and without which is still a pain). At that time I didn’t have a thin kerf blade so I never tried with thin splitters.

I’m always prepared to try anything new and not being one to spare workshop expenditure and potential safety, I came across the MicroJig splitter quite a few years back (after my 2nd. timber gut tattoo as a result of being too lazy to swap out the “temporary” ZCI without the shop made splitter). Cost a fortune to ship to Australia (they didn’t have a local retailer back then) but since then I’ve never cut without it (except for non-through cuts which are safe without the splitter). The splitter lifts out and put back as required and the kerf in the ZCI seems to wear out before the splitter lug holes loosen up. Just did a Google and the latest offering is for a combination splitter for both a standard blade and a thin kerf in one (had to buy individually in my time). Check out this link.

At the end of the day all you really need is the splitter, however, the kit has a number of plastic coated steel core which is robust and removable (especially the thin kerf one compared to timber) and includes a jig that makes ZCI adaptation easy (bit of an overkill but I would have paid that for the steel core splitter by itself). If you do go for it, bear in mind the thin kerf (at least the one I have) is 2.4mm and too wide for the true 1.7mm thin kerf blade.

Even if you don’t think the MicroJig is worth it at least it can give you some good ideas.

-- If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD

If you haven t a zero clearance insert for your table saw, you should have one. Having said that you will need to make one. While you re at that, consider a shop made splitter built into you ZCI. There are more articles about making one than the number of cupcakes the missus has before breakfast. So do a quick search.

- LittleBlackDuck

hi Ducky …..... If you ever seen a walker turner table saw it is impossible to put a zero clearance insert on it …...... believe me I tried many times sort of a really weird hole in it